What is the future without the past? Give me a simple answer to the question, “What is time?” Lovely all these nonsense shapes that words can form, isn’t it? Let’s slow it down a bit then. Focus. A bunch of “stuff” happened in the past. Some of that stuff is music. After letting that music marinate for a decade or so, we discovered that some of it is eternal. There was no way to tell at the time. The past had to be informed by our present aka it’s future.  Oh, but what of the excitement of The New? The daring that dares and does what no one has done before and is great because we haven’t had a chance to meditate on it yet. That is so wonderful too. Is there a way that both the time tested old and the no-one-can-put-a-finger-on-it new could be one ulta megazord? Thats where VNC steps in from beyond the landscape, crushing your cities with a giant metal toe.

Precise ribbons of drum flutter and guitar notes that roll around like Thinking Fellers marbles; sitting in a dark haze of lofi nope-age that serves as a bed for one of the greatest atonal punk chants you’ll ever hear. Time has folded over on itself as every decade presents itself at once.  Enter the Futursaur, your new leader:

VNC – Harm Guitar

There are a few idioms that have sunk in the subconscious substratum of the lingua franca which is Punk Rock. No matter whether you are some wannabe fucked up kid trying to smuggle drinks into an all-ages show, or an old dude who never got rid of the leather jacket, the presence of these idioms in a song will bring to your mind analogous images of abstract fury and teen-age fever. They include the handclap of doom and the agony of distortion, the feral grind and the primeval wall of barbed wire strangulation. They are the secret code of which this culture is made, buboes of the nihilistic plague which instils fear in the hearts of God-fearing citizens. But one thing is clear. You can learn these idioms back to front, but you can’t fake the accent with which they need to be pronunciated.

Nothing People can talk the talk. Enemy with an Invitation, included in a 7” of the same title released in a deluxe package by Permanent Records bristles with the black and white fury of its ancestors- the Cleveland proto-punk diaspora and Chrome’s cybernetic trashing in the Tabernacle of bad vibes. It’s all in there, like the blurry snapshot of a moment of cathartic violence. We keep on believing.

Nothing People- Enemy with an Invitation

While techno may be the country music of Europe, here in LA it is usually just the music of douche-bags. Then the punks got their hands on it and things really got fucked up.

Enter King Ahab (Twitter). Punk in attitude, but still a virtuoso that crafts everything to perfection. There are a lot of awesome folks doing this Ravesploitation thang here in the valley of smoke (IE and Kid Infinity are the first to come to mind), but it is Captain Ahab that serves as world-wide ambassador for this LA sound. So why not a summit meeting? Let’s call Sickboy to the table and see what he has to say:

Captain Ahab-Party Baby (Sickboy Remix)

Get it from the wonderfully named, Needs More RAM Records.

I’ve been feeling that Cali nostalgia lately and listening back to some classic, although sadly unknown, 90s jams. Obsession has never meant as much for me as it did with a band called rRope from San Francisco. To use 90s reference points, they were a Sonic Youth or maybe even Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 for the Touch N’ Go / Jesus Lizard loving crowd.

Totally cowboy. Or, like that scene in Young Guns when the cowboys all do peyote. Bad asses doing mystical shit. Fucking amazing. Fortunately for us, rRope’s demise is not the end of the story. Death to rRope, long live VNC!!! Sorta. It’s a combo of awesome classic SF folks, but best of all they are active NOW. We are blessed.

Lets all walk on molten glass.

rRope- Step Right Up

VNC- Sea Way Wolf

Half way between Los Angeles and Alaska is Alaskas. The dude. From Seattle. A part of the small, genuis circle of lo-fi-ers from the land of Grunge that Universal Studios Florida call home, Alaskas is the heart throb of the group. A male Kate Bush that is killing it live with a brutal poised-honesty… but see for yourself:

Alaskas “Unshackled” video

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6772030[/vimeo]

The message of that song is either “free yourself” or “free downloads”. You decide. In the meantime:

Alaskas- Unshackled (Universal State of Florida_Remix)

We are DJing at the Nail the Cross on Saturday. Rising early and shining strong. Come and say hi.